I decided in a recent go green swap to make a huge set of magazine beads. I always have tons of magazines piled around (I'm a sort of magazine junkie). I always imagine they will come in useful, and now they have.

The Bowl of Beads (I reused a plastic bowl some yummy watermelon came in)

A Few Close-Ups

I love how colorful they turned out. Now, I just need to make myself a bowlful!

My best friend while making these beads was my paper cutter.Thank you dear paper cutter!

I love making paper beads, but lordy, lordy, do I hate sealing them. I would PAY someone to do that. That's why I don't make paper beads...it actually is relaxing to me to roll them but as I said, the sealing, I hate.

I'm not the original poster, but I too make paper beads. I use Mod Podge to seal the ends as I'm rolling them up (I use metal skewers because the glue doesn't stick to them), and after another coat of Mod Podge after 24 hours or so, I give them a coat of clear spray paint to keep them from sticking to each other. The basic bead is cut out of a long skinny triangle of paper, but you can get interesting effects with a long rectangle with a triangle cut out of the end, sort of like a long skinny two-pronged fork.